MPS to lay off 354 teachers

Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Gregory Thornton announced at a news conference this afternoon that 519 layoff notices would be issued for next school year, including 354 teachers.

Most of the teacher cuts come at the elementary level. The district has about 125 elementary schools. The elementary schools most affected are those that lost funding for a program that reduces class sizes.

The layoffs are the result of a number of budgetary factors, including the loss of $84 million in state aid to MPS for the next fiscal year, Thornton said.

Thornton called on the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association to reconsider the district's request that teachers pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions, which would have reduced the number of layoffs by about 200 teachers.

The union settled a contract last fall that runs through 2013. Union officials said they already made concessions to save the district money, including a wage freeze and changes in health insurance benefits. But the district did not get the pension contribution concession included in the new state budget.

"Months ago, the statewide union leader of WEAC, Mary Bell, said all of her members would accept increased health care and pension contributions to save teachers’ jobs," Cullen Werwie, spokesoman for Gov. Scott Walker, said Wednesday after MPs announced the layoffs.

During the budget process, the Legislature and the governor gave school districts the ability to open up existing contracts to receive savings from increased public employee contributions without modifying the collective bargaining provisions of the contract, Werwie said in a statement.

"Instead of following their statewide union leader, even with that exact option made available to the school district due to legislative compromise, MTEA would rather layoff teachers than contribute a modest amount toward their benefits," Werwie said.

"In other school districts that have utilized the tools available to them, class sizes are going down, budgets are balanced, taxes are held in check, and they still have enough money to begin financially rewarding the best and brightest teachers," said Werwie.

MTEA President Bob Peterson could not immediately be reached for comment.

Thornton earlier this year had projected 989 full-time equivalent positions would be cut, nearly 10% of the teacher workforce. But he said then that it did not mean nearly 1,000 jobs would be lost. Many positions are vacant; others would be cut through attrition.

About 220 teachers are retiring after this school year, according to MPS spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin.

The school board earlier this month approved a $1.17 billion budget for the 2011-'12 fiscal year that in addition to cutting jobs, increases elementary school class sizes and defers building maintenance, while restoring transportation for the district's youngest bus riders.

The new budget is 13.5% leaner - or about $182 million less - than the budget under which the district, with 184 schools and 81,372 children, currently is operating.

Before approving the budget, the board added a protest statement objecting to "how the state tied the hands" of board members through deep state funding cuts to help balance the state's $3 billion budget deficit without raising taxes.